Printers for printing desired information such as text and images on a sheet-like printing medium such as paper or film are in wide use as information output devices employed in word processors, personal computers and facsimile machines, etc.
With advances that have been made in providing printers with greater functionality in recent years, a large number of so-called multifunction machines have been proposed in recent years. This machines possess not only a printing function but also the functions of a scanner, facsimile and copier. Such multifunction machines have not only copying and printing functions but also functions related to finishing such as sorting, folding and stapling.
Insert processing for inserting insert or chapterization sheets is known as such finishing processing performed by a multifunction machine. Specifically, when a document comprising a plurality of sheets is copied, insert processing affords the document with the effect of topic headings by using paper of, e.g., different colors for pages that are to be distinguished from others, such as pages for table of contents or beginnings of chapters, in such a manner that the sections of the document can be readily identified.
Conventionally, when printing is executed upon specifying insertion of an insert sheet from within an application running on a host computer, the result of printout is either of the following:                (1) The insert sheet is inserted at the specified page but the machine cannot be set for printing on the insert sheet. This means that nothing can be printed on the insert.        (2) Since printing different from that of other pages cannot be set for the insert, printing is performed on the insert sheet using settings the same as those for the other pages. In this case, if double-sided printing has been specified for other pages, then the insert sheet also will undergo double-sided printing. If multiple (N) images have been specified to be assigned to other pages (in an N-UP layout or N-in-1 layout), then the insert sheet also will be printed in the N-up layout.        
However, since the reason why the user executes insert processing is to make it easier to recognize pages such as table of contents and the beginnings of chapters that are to be distinguished from other pages, as mentioned above, there are many cases where the user wishes to make a setting at least for the front side of the insert sheet that is different from that of the other pages, e.g., a setting to print the front side in a 1UP layout, in which only one image is printed on the front side.
However, with insert processing performed by a conventional printer, such printing cannot be performed and, hence, user needs cannot be satisfied.
More specifically, in the case of point (1) above, printing cannot be performed on the insert. Therefore, though the insert sheet can be identified as a page, information relating to the content of the pages that follow the insert sheet is not obtained from the insert sheet. In the case of point (2) above, printing is performed on the insert using a print setting similar to that for the other pages and therefor a satisfactory “topic heading” effect is not obtained from the insert. For example, if the insert sheet also undergoes double-sided printing or if images are printed on the insert sheet in a layout identical with that of the other pages, images that represent the content of the pages that follow the insert sheet will not stand out.
In order for printing performed on an insert sheet to be set differently from that of other pages, therefore, the conventional practice is first to perform printing on the insert sheet and other pages separately using print settings for the insert sheet that differ from the print settings for the other pages, and then to have the user gather the printed sheets together and insert the insert sheets manually. This entails user labor and is inefficient.